Who We Are
Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason (BRI) is committed to finding causes and cures for autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, and immune-mediated diseases such as allergies and asthma. Our research is dedicated to predicting, preventing, halting, treating and ultimately eliminating these lifelong, chronic diseases.
BRI is led by President Jane H. Buckner, MD, and Executive Director & Chief Operating Officer Margaret McCormick, PhD.
- 300 scientists, staff and volunteers
- 24 faculty and 10 core laboratories
$71 million of revenue in 2017 from these sources:
- 74% – government grants and contracts
- 5% – pharmaceutical studies and contracted research
- 9% – philanthropic donations
- 5% – foundations and other grants
- 7% – other support
How We Work
The overall focus of our science is to improve human health through solving unmet medical needs for diseases of the immune system. Listed below are some characteristics that make BRI unique.
- Because autoimmune and immune-mediated diseases are connected, so is the way we’re fighting them. What we learn from one disease is applied to others, accelerating discovery and breakthroughs.
- We collaborate and cooperate between researchers, across clinical studies and with many other institutions to accelerate applying laboratory breakthroughs to clinical therapies.
- BRI has a close working relationship with Virginia Mason, giving us direct access to clinical investigators and over 100,000 patients, including tens of thousands of people suffering from autoimmune and immune-mediated diseases, many of whom volunteer for clinical trials and participate in our biorepositories.
- Eight active biorepositories across many diseases and conditions, including a healthy volunteer registry, with more than 250,000 samples from nearly 9,000 participants are available to our scientists, enabling them to accelerate their research through quick access to critical samples that will help unlock the foundations of disease.
- Ten core labs provide state-of-the-art analysis and data capabilities, available to all labs.
- BRI is involved in significant collaborative initiatives with industry, academia and government entities and leads the Immune Tolerance Network, Type 1 Diabetes TrialNet and other major cooperative research programs resulting in worldwide scope and impact.